We all need to know about Santa – even the Charedim

There was a story last week about a vicar who took into his head to tell a group of primary schools that Father Christmas wasn’t real. He really drove the point home, too, explaining to the kids that if they left out biscuits and the biscuits disappeared, that is because their parents ate them.

The school has been trying hard to restore the magic and mystery for the children but they concede that it will be difficult.

Whenever I read a story like that, I always have the same thought. If people think it’s hard getting through Christmas without believing in Father Christmas, they should try not believing in Jesus.

When I was a small child, I admit, I was jealous of those who could just throw themselves into Christmas, but as I got older I began more and more to appreciate being outside it. It still seems great fun, but I love the sense of being different, of having our own thing.

I love Chanukah, but not because it is a substitute Christmas. It really isn’t. I love it for itself, and somehow even more now that it brings memories of my parents and the rituals they enjoyed.

But however much I may value this “otherness” and enjoy standing outside the national mood and watching, it does act as a reminder that we Jews are not living in a Jewish country.

Most of the year this difference doesn’t really impinge, but at Christmas, it does.

Britain is probably one of the easiest countries in the world for a religious minority to navigate. And easier still if you are – as we Jews are – fairly undemanding of the state. Being distinctly Jewish and distinctly British is something that can be managed with relative ease. But it still does have to be managed.

The core principle seems to be these: we are right to demand protection for the things that make us different, but in return, we must respect the basic conventions of British life and do our best to meet its expectations.

How to do this isn’t always obvious.

A very good example is provided by the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. This is a government measure designed to bring some much-needed rigour to home schooling and education taking place outside the school setting. It would create a register so that at least it has some record of children’s education and can ensure that everyone is receiving basic tuition.

It is this latter part of the proposal that is worrying the Charedi community. They are concerned that yeshivot will eventually come under the control of Ofsted, bringing with it unwanted attention. This might include requiring the children to learn about the theory of evolution.

I can see their problem. But I can’t agree with their objection. I think that bringing children up as Orthodox Jews is a basic civil right. The education system needs to be as flexible as possible in order to allow this to happen. But I also think that Britain as a whole has a right to insist that people who are born here and are to become adult citizens of this country receive an education that equips them for that role, as well as for their roles as Jews.

That has to mean a proper scientific education, preparations for the attainment of basic academic qualifications and equality for boys and girls.

As young people grow up, they can make choices about how they wish to live their adult life. It would be deeply wrong to deny them the immersion in Jewish learning and traditions that their parents wish them to have. After all, they need to be able to live as Jews now and in the future.

But they are also British Jews, not just Jews, and that means that this country has the right to keep some sort of record of their education and ensure that their schooling meets basic secular standards.

So I can’t accept the Charedi campaign against the bill. The bill is not anti-faith.

Children have a right to learn fundamental scientific facts, which remain true whether their parents support them or not. And this country has the right and the duty to ensure its future citizens are educated.